Weaponization of refugees: Why now?

AbstractThe limited studies that focus on the weaponization of refugees typically emphasize how liberal democracies and states with restricted carrying capacity are vulnerable to this tactic. The declining number of liberal democracies globally, the Russian-Ukraine War demonstrating states’ true carrying capacities, and the tactic’s increasing prevalence, however, necessitate a closer examination of their causes. Technological and ideological developments, along with developments in warfare as a result of these changes, mean that the weaponization of refugees is likely to increase, not decrease, in the foreseeable future. Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1 “Plane Carrying Belarusian Opposition Figure Ordered to Divert to Minsk by President Alexander Lukashenko,” The ABC, May 23, 2021, https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-05-24/plane-carrying-opposition-figure-diverted-to-belarus/100159524. Accessed November 22, 2022.2 Robin Emmott, Daphne Psaledakis, and James William, “West Hits Belarus with New Sanctions over Ryanair ‘Piracy,’” Reuters, June 21, 2021, https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2021-06-21/west-hits-belarus-with-new-sanctions-over-ryanair-piracy. Accessed November 22, 2022.3 European Council, “Belarus: EU Imposes Sanctions for Repression and Election Falsification,” October 2, 2020, https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2020/10/02/belarus-eu-imposes-sanctions-for-repression-and-election-falsification/. Accessed November 22, 2022.4 FRONTEX, “Migratory Routes: Eastern Borders Route,” 2022, https://frontex.europa.eu/we-know/migratory-routes/eastern-borders-route/. Accessed November 22, 2022.5 FRONTEX.6 “Belarus Bringing Hundreds in Trucks to Cross into EU: Poland,” Aljazeera, November 19, 2021, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/11/19/poland-reports-more-belarus-border-crossing-attempts. Accessed November 22, 2022.7 Anna Noryskiewicz, “Migrants and Refugees Caught up in Belarus-EU ‘Hybrid Warfare’ Are Freezing to Death in No Man’s Land,” CBS News, October 8, 2021, https://www.cbsnews.com/news/poland-belarus-eu-border-migrants-refugees-caught-in-middle-and-dying/. Accessed November 23, 2022.8 “Will Belarus Flood Poland with 50,000 Migrants by Christmas?,” RFE/RL Timeline, December 15, 2002, https://www.rferl.org/a/1142817.html. Accessed November 23, 2022.9 Lorenzo Tondo, “In Limbo: The Refugees Left on the Belarusian-Polish Border – a Photo Essay,” The Guardian, February 8, 2022, https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2022/feb/08/in-limbo-refugees-left-on-belarusian-polish-border-eu-frontier-photo-essay. Accessed November 23, 2022.10 See: James Horncastle and Jack MacLennan, “Where Eagles Err: Contemporary Geopolitics and the Future of Western Special Operations,” Special Operations Journal 7, no. 1 (2021): 43-54. Arthur Jennequin, “Turkey and the Weaponization of Syrian Refugees” (Brussels, Belgium: Brussels International Centre, 2020). James Horncastle, “Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine Fuels a Refugee Crisis That Could Help Putin Win the War,” The Conversation, February 28, 2022, https://theconversation.com/russias-invasion-of-ukraine-fuels-a-refugee-crisis-that-could-help-putin-win-the-war-177951. Accessed November 24, 2022. For successful examples see: Kelly M. Greenhill, Weapons of Mass Migration Forced Displacement, Coercion, and Foreign Policy (Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP, 2010). 373-424.11 The number of publications on hybrid warfare has exploded since the term was coined, so much so that scholars now argue we have entered an Age of Hybrid Warfare. See: Benjamin Tallis and Michal Šimečka, “Collective Defence in the Age of Hybrid Warfare” (Prague: Institute for International Relations, 2016). Passim.12 Frank Hoffman, “The Hybrid War That Began before Russia Invaded Ukraine,” Deutsche Welle, 2022, https://www.dw.com/en/hybrid-war-in-ukraine-began-before-russian-invasion/a-60914988. Accessed April 3, 2022.13 The Second World War, the Partition of India, and the Bangladesh Liberation War are the largest refugee crises on record.14 While Steger’s definition is not perfect, it does provide a foundation for discussion. See: Nathan Steger, “The Weaponization of Migration: Examining Migration as a 21st Century Tool of Political Warfare” (Monteray, California: Naval Postgraduate School, 2017).15 Jospeh Nye, “Soft Power: The Evolution of a Concept,” Journal of Political Power 14, no. 1 (2021): 196–208. 196.16 Nye.17 Christopher Walker, Shanthi Kalathil, and Jessica Ludwig, “The Cutting Edge of Sharp Power,” Journal of Democracy 31, no. 1 (2020): 124–37. 127.18 Nye, “Soft Power: The Evolution of a Concept.” 202.19 Kelly M. Greenhill, Weapons of Mass Migration Forced Displacement, Coercion, and Foreign Policy. 343.20 James Jay Carafano, “Immigration Policy Will Remain the Great Divide in American Politics” (GIS Reports, September 9, 2022), https://www.gisreportsonline.com/r/united-states-immigration-policy/.21 For one of the foundational texts in this literature, see: Col. Thomas X. Hammes, The Sling and the Stone: On War in the 21st Century (St. Paul, MN: Zenith Press, 2006). Passim.22 Carl von Clausewitz, On War, ed. Michael Howard and Peter Paret (Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 2008). Book 1.23 Martin Van Creveld, The Transformation of War (New York: The Free Press, 1991). Passim. Kalevi J. Holsti, The State, War and the State of War (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1996). Passim; Mark Duffield, Global Governance and the New Wars: The Merging of Development and Security (London: Zed Books, 2001). Passim; Frank Hoffman, Conflict in the 21st Century: The Rise of Hybrid Wars (Arlington, VA: Potomac Institute for Policy Studies, 2007). Passim; Mark Kaldor, New & Old Wars: Organized Violence in a Global Era (Stanford, CA: Stanford UP, 2012). Passim.24 Jean-Marc Rickli, “Neutrality Inside and Outside the EU: A Comparison of Austrian and Swiss Security Policies After the Cold War,” in Small States in Europe: Challenges and Opportunities, ed. Robert Steinmetz and Anders Wivel (Milton Park: Ashgate, 2010), 181–98. 183.25 The United States’ belated adoption of a Special Forces command, not formalized until 1987, demonstrates the secondary nature of non-traditional military operations in policymakers’ minds, despite their legacies extending considerably further than their formalization. See: James D. Kiras, Special Operations and Strategy: From World War II to the War on Terror (Milton Park: Routledge, 2006). Passim.26 Hoffman, Conflict in the 21st Century: The Rise of Hybrid Wars. 8.27 Ibid28 Donald Stoker and Craig Whiteside, “Blurred Lines: Gray-Zone Conflict and Hybrid War—Two Failures of American Strategic Thinking,” Naval War College Review 73, no. 1 (2020): 1–37.29 For an example of this point see: Gilmar Visoni-Alonzo, The Carrera Revolt and “Hybrid Warfare” in Nineteenth-Century Central America (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018). Passim.30 For an example of this point see: David Kilcullen, The Dragons and the Snakes: How the Rest Learned to Fight the West (New York: Oxford UP, 2020). 19.31 Clausewitz, On War. Book 1.32 Mark Galeotti, Russian Political War: Moving Beyond the Hybrid (New York: Routledge, 2019). 105.33 Paul B. Rich, “The Snowball Phenomenon: The US Marine Corps, Military Mythology and the Spread of Hybrid Warfare Theory,” Defense & Security Analysis 35, no. 4 (2019): 430-46. 446.34 Galeotti, Russian Political War: Moving Beyond the Hybrid. 27.35 “Shoigu: Information Becomes Another Armed Forces Component,” Interfax, 2015, http://www.interfax.com/newsinf.asp?id=581851. Accessed January 25, 2023.36 The League of Nations in 1921 was the first organization to provide a legal definition. See: Guy S. Goodwin-Gill, “The International Law of Refugee Protection,” in The Oxford Handbook of Refugee and Forced Migration Studies, ed. Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh and Gil Loescher (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2014), 36–47.37 The Refugee Convention of 1951 defines a refugee as the following: “owing to well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable, or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country; or who, not having a nationality and being outside the country of his former habitual residence as a result of such events, is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to return to it.” See: Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees (New York, 1951).38 Virgil, The Aenid, trans. David West (Toronto, CA: Penguin Classics, 2003). Passim.39 For example, when the Han Dynasty seized the Hexi Corridor in the second century BCE, it expelled large numbers of Xiognu, and in turn were replaced with Han settlers, some of whom were forcibly displaced themselves. See: Chun-shu Chang, The Rise of the Chinese Empire: Frontier, Immigration, & Empire in Han China, 130 B.C. – A.D. 157, vol. 2 (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2007). 8.40 von Clausewitz, On War.41 Examples of these efforts include restrictions on weapons such as dumdum bullets, submarines, poison gas, etc.42 Gilad Ben-Nun, The Fourth Geneva Convention for Civilians: The History of International Humanitarian Law (London: I.B. Tauris, 2020). Passim.43 Greenhill defines hypocrisy costs as “political costs that can be imposed when there exists a real or perceived disparity between a professed commitment to liberal values and norms and demonstrated actions that contravene such a commitment." Kelly M. Greenhill, Weapons of Mass Migration Forced Displacement, Coercion, and Foreign Policy. 11.44 While many individuals, like Michael Ignatieff, initially embraced the idea it has since come under increased scrutiny. For example, see: Frank Schimmelfennig, “The Community Trap: Liberal Norms, Rhetorical Action, and the Eastern Enlargement of the European Union” 55, no. 1 (2001): 47–80.45 Kelly M. Greenhill, Weapons of Mass Migration Forced Displacement, Coercion, and Foreign Policy. 174-236.46 Cited in: Kelly M. Greenhill. 262.47 Myron Weiner, cited in “Michael S. Teitelbaum, “Immigration, Refugees, and Foreign Policy,” International Organization 38, no. 3 (1984): 429–50. 447.48 Kelly M. Greenhill, Weapons of Mass Migration Forced Displacement, Coercion, and Foreign Policy. 12, 353-4.49 “Infographic - Refugees from Ukraine in the EU” (European Council, March 30, 2023), https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/infographics/ukraine-refugees-eu/.50 James Gow and James Tilsey, “The Strategic Imperative for Media Management,” in Bosnia by Television, ed. James Gow, Richard Paterson, and Alison Preston (London: British Film Institute, 1996). 103.51 According to the Democracy Index, the number of full democracies has declined between 2006 and 2021. See: Laza Kekic, “Index of Democracy” (The Economist Intelligence Unit, 2007), https://www.economist.com/media/pdf/DEMOCRACY_INDEX_2007_v3.pdf. Accessed May 5, 2022; “Democracy Index 2021: The China Challenge” (The Economist Intelligence Unit, 2022), https://www.eiu.com/n/campaigns/democracy-index-2021/. Accessed May 5, 2022.52 Kelly M. Greenhill, Weapons of Mass Migration Forced Displacement, Coercion, and Foreign Policy. 9-10.53 Kelly Greenhill, “When Migrants Become Weapons: The Long History and Worrying Future of a Coercive Tactic,” Foreign Affairs 101, no. 2 (2022): 155. 15554 Odd Arne Westad, “The Cold War and the International History of the Twentieth Century,” in The Cambridge History of the Cold War: Origins, ed. Melvyn P. Leffler and Odd Arne Westad, vol. 1 (New York: Cambridge UP, 2010), 1–20.55 For example see: Craig Campbell and Sergey Radchenko, “MAD, Not Marx: Khrushchev and the Nuclear Revolution,” Journal of Strategic Studies 41, no. 1/2 (2018): 208–33.56 Hope Millard Harrison, Driving the Soviets Up the Wall: Soviet-East German Relations, 1953–1961. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 2003). 99.57 Ibid.58 Frederic Grare, “The Geopolitics of Afghan Refugees in Pakistan,” in Refugee Manipulation: War, Politics and the Abuse of Human Suffering, ed. Stephen Stedman and Fred Tanner (Washington D.C.: Brookings Institution, 2003), 57–94. 60.59 Michael Maurus, The Unwanted: European Refugees in the 20th Century (Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 1985). Passim.60 Perhaps the worst colonial power in this regard was Belgium, which, due to its efforts to maintain control even after acknowledging the independence movement in Congo, actively sponsored separatist movements in the country. This deliberate sabotage on the part of the Belgian colonial authorities was compounded by the nature of the Cold War. See: Lise Namikas, Battleground Africa: Cold War in the Congo, 1960–1965 (Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 2013). Passim.61 Mary Gillespie et. al, “Mapping Refugee Media Journeys Smartphones and Social Media Networks Research Report” (Open University, 2016), http://www.open.ac.uk/ccig/sites/www.open.ac.uk.ccig/files/Mapping%20Refugee%20Media%20Journeys%2016%20May%20FIN%20MG_0.pdf. Accessed January 25, 2023.62 Diana Oncioiu, “Ethnic Nationalism and Genocide,” in Genocide : New Perspectives on Its Causes, Courses and Consequences, ed. Ugur Üngör (Amsterdam: Amsterdam UP, 2016), 27–48.63 Olayiwola Abegunrin, “Pan-African Congresses, 1893-1974,” in Pan Africanism in Modern Times: Challenges, Concerns, and Constraints, ed. Olayiwola Abegunrin and Sabella Ogbobode Abidde (Lanham, MD: Lexington, 2016), 17–46. 17-45. Tawfic E. Farah, Pan-Arabism And Arab Nationalism: The Continuing Debate (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1987). Passim.64 It is important to note that there were exceptions to this general rule. The Nigerian Civil War and Uganda stand out as examples of at least one party seeking to weaponize migrants and refugees. For analyses of both incidents see: Joseph E. Thompson, American Policy and African Famine: The Nigeria-Biafra War, 1966-1970 (New York: Praeger, 1990). Passim; Klaus Neumann, “‘Our Own Interests Must Come First’ Australia’s Response to the Expulsion of Asians from Uganda,” History Australia 3, no. 1 (2006): 1–17, https://doi.org/10.2104/ha060010.65 This stability only extends to North America and Europe. Outside of this domain, the alliance blocs, such as the initial alliance between the Soviet Union and China and the breakdown of relations, were considerably less stable. See: Jeremy Friedman, Shadow Cold War: The Sino-Soviet Competition for the Third World (Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press, 2018). Passim.66 For analysis of these issues, see: Helen Caraveli, “The Dynamics of the EU Core-Periphery Division: Eastern vs. Southern Periphery – A Comparative Analysis from a New Economic Geography Perspective,” in Core-Periphery Patterns Across the European Union : Case Studies and Lessons from Eastern and Southern Europe, ed. Gabriela Carmen Pascariu and Adelaide Duarte (Howard House, Wagon Lane, Bingley: Emerald Publishing Limited, 2017), 3–22. Natalie Zähringer and Malte Brosig, “Organised Hypocrisy in the African Union: The Responsibility to Protect as a Contested Norm,” South African Journal of International Affairs 27, no. 1 (2020): 1–23.67 For explorations on the topic of US and Western conventional dominance see: Andrea Gilli and Mauro Gilli, “Why China Has Not Caught Up Yet: Military-Technological Superiority and the Limits of Imitation, Reverse Engineering, and Cyber Espionage,” International Security 43, no. 3 (2019): 141–89. Daniel C. O’Neill, Dividing ASEAN and Conquering the South China Sea: China’s Financial Power Projection (Hong Kong: Hong Kong UP, 2018). Passim.68 David Kilcullen, The Dragons and the Snakes: How the Rest Learned to Fight the West. 68.69 David Kilcullen. 6.70 A state or non-state actor, in expelling a population, can use said people in an effort to obtain policy concessions from their neighbours. See: James Horncastle, “The Ethics of Water Securitization: Understanding the 1999 Bombing Campaign in Kosovo,” in Ethical Water Stewardship, ed. Ingrid Stefanovic and Zafar Adeel (New York: Springer, 2021), 179–94. 179-94.71 For examples of the Serbian state’s use, see: Oncioiu, “Ethnic Nationalism and Genocide.” 27-48.72 Kelly M. Greenhill, “Strategic Engineered Migration as a Weapon of War,” Suffolk Transnational Law Review 39, no. 3 (2016): 615–36. 6-15.73 Richard W. Stevenson, “Stories of Hope, Courage, and Loss as Historic Journey Unfolds,” The New York Times, November 12, 2015.74 Katja Franko Aas and Helene O. I. Gundhus, “Policing Humanitarian Borderlands: FRONTEX, Human Rights and the Precariousness of Life,” British Journal of Criminology 55, no. 1 (2015): 1–18.75 Stephen Graham, Cities under Siege: The New Military Urbanism (London: Verson, 2010). 16.76 Anthony King, Urban Warfare in the Twenty-First Century, vol. Medford, MA (Polity Press, 2021). 182.77 For arguments as to why this is the case, see: David Kilcullen, Out of the Mountains: The Coming Age of the Urban Guerrilla (New York: Oxford UP, 2013). Passim; Richard J. Norton, “Feral Cities,” Naval War College Review 56, no. 4 (2003): 1–10. David Betz and Hugh Stanford-Tuck, “The City Is Neutral,” Texas National Security Review 2, no. 4 (2019): 60–87. Gian Genile et. al, Reimagining the Character of Urban Operations for the U.S. Army: How the Past Can Inform the Present and Future (Santa Monica, CA: Rand Corporation, 2017). 8-9.78 King, Urban Warfare in the Twenty-First Century. 182.79 This is why, in part, proportionality is a key test in assessing the legitimacy of a military action. See: Colin H. Kahl, “In the Crossfire or the Crosshairs? Norms, Civilian Casualties, and U.S. Conduct in Iraq,” International Security 32, no. 1 (2007): 7–46.80 United Nations, World Urbanization Prospects The 2001 Revision (New York: Population Division, 2002). 26.81 Michael Evans, City without Joy: Military Operations in the 21st Century (Canberra: Australian Defence College, 2007). 14.Additional informationNotes on contributorsJames HorncastleJames Horncastle (jhorncas@sfu.ca) is an assistant professor within the Department of Global Humanities, the inaugural holder of the Edward and Emily McWhinney Professorship in International Relations, and a member of the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Center for Hellenic Studies at Simon Fraser University. Horncastle has published extensively on the topics of refugee and migration studies; modern history of Greece; international relations; Yugoslav studies; identity formation; and conflict studies. His most recent article, “The unsettled foundation: self-management and its implications for Yugoslavia’s policy of Total National Defence” in Defense & Security Analysis examines how the interaction between Yugoslavia’s defence policy and state ideology created structural defects that internal actors could exploit for their own benefit.